


Fireflies

by theplushfrog



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Complete, F/M, M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-20
Updated: 2008-10-20
Packaged: 2017-11-13 23:04:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/508684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theplushfrog/pseuds/theplushfrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only finding your soulmate was as easy as it is for fireflies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireflies

Mystic like the stars, but utterly closer and even more strange to hold in hand, are the fireflies. They glow, dip and weave through the night sky, lighting their way like tiny stars that were born with six legs and wings.

Sirius reaches out and closes his large wiry hands around a single spark of light. He holds it close and peers inside of his hands. The tiny insect blinks its glow at him, antenna waving around, as if to say ' _alright, but only this one time,_ ' and then rests lightly on his palm.

Laughing, he opens his hands and the small glowing bug pauses on his skin only for a moment before hovering off into the sky, slowly rising as if to join with the stars.

Remus sits beside him, and James is curled on his other side, holding Lily in his lap. Her red hair is draped across James's shoulders, her back against his chest and arms wrapped in his. Peter lies on his back at their feet, like an obedient, but overgrown dog. He's lucky: tonight even Sirius can't be angry about Peter stealing his style.

Lily leans back and whispers something past messy black hair into James's ear. The boy smiles a smile filled with mischief and follows her like leaves follow one another on the same carefree breeze.

Peter mutters something and goes in the opposite direction. He never stays when James has left.

Sirius doesn't mind. They know Peter is upset at James putting Lily before the Marauders, but it really isn't that. Lily has become a kind of honorary Marauder. She is now just as part of James as James is of her and they have collapsed together into a single existence instead of two separate beings. Remus and Sirius understand that it isn't James putting Lily first, but James being James and somehow finding that he isn't just  _James_  but  _James-and-Lily_.

Sirius leans back, one hand groping for the stars, or maybe for the fireflies: they are the same now. Insects glowing of fire or balls of flame burning far away—they are the same. Both are only around at certain times, and neither can be held for long. You have to give up the stars to dawn and fireflies to the night.

Sirius folds his arms under his head, the grass scratchy but cool against his bare skin. His hair lays tangled in the determined weeds and rain-clean green of the grass. His jacket sits forgotten nearby and he props one leg up on his other.

He startles slightly when Remus speaks, for Sirius had all but dazed off into the world of soft-glowing fireflies and chirping crickets.

"You know. It's kind of romantic. The fireflies, I mean." Remus says in almost a whisper but too loud, almost slurred with laze, but also articulated from practice, and maybe soft but also lost.

Sirius turns his head, hair slithering in following. "Hm?"

"Each firefly is searching for a glow in the same pattern as theirs, searching for their soulmate in bug terms." He hugs his knees to his chest, gesturing with a hand to the sky full of dancing stars and fireflies. "So really, what we're watching are their individual journeys as they try to find their other half, who lives by the same light pulse that they do."

Sirius turned back to the night, grey eyes thoughtful. "That… sounds nice." He says slowly at first, tongue curving around the words with care, "I wish we had it that easy. Just float around prettily with a glowing light until you've found someone with the same light as yours." He laughs lazily, "Sounds a hell of a lot easier."

Remus shifts slightly, placing his hands on the grass, strong fingers spread apart. The green spikes seem determined to get through to the space stolen from it. "I suppose."

Grey eyes settle on brown fraying hair, amber eyes turned skyward, and lean curve of the werewolf.

A light breeze pulls at mousy brown and sleek black hair, picks at their plain and grass-stained clothes, before chasing itself away to dance with the fireflies in the night.

Sirius smiles lightly, eyes soft and wondering, "Maybe." He answers something unsaid and turns his eyes back to the dance of stars and fireflies, his heart beating a pattern answered by the beat of another nearby.

**Author's Note:**

> I love fireflies. The inspiration for this fic comes from the fact that while everyone loves to mentions how beautiful the fireflies' light is in their stories... no one ever talks about the reason fireflies glow. Maybe I just used to read too many books about insects when I was little... I was a very odd child after all, but I always found the reason for a fireflies' light makes watching them even more unearthly and romantic. The male fireflies use their wings in aid to search out the ground-bound females with the same pattern of light as theirs. It's really quite lovely.


End file.
